THREE YEARS ago, the Israel Public Relations Association, seeking to upgrade the standards of its members and to encourage a new generation to join its ranks, introduced the Roaring Lion award - a silver lion's head sculpted by one of its veteran members, Moshe Dayan.

This year's prizes included Gitam, Porter Novelli receiving Campaign of the Year award for its Israel Teachers' Union Educational Reform campaign. Praising ISPRA chairperson, Ruth Sheetrit, for being the largest of the 28 sponsors of the gala event at the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv, Orna Gurel, the managing director of Gitam, Porter Novelli, said she had given a platform to excellence and creativity. In fact, it was GPN's day. The company was also awarded the prize in the Public Struggle category for the same campaign and first prize in the Community Relations category for A Safe Internet Day - a campaign conducted with and for Microsoft. Other prize winners were: Crisis Management: Laniado Ganor for its cooking gas campaign on behalf of Kiryat Ata Gasworks; Awareness: the door knock campaign for a mobile mammography unit by Nava Inbar, the spokeswoman for the Israel Cancer Association; Special Events: the opening of the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum campaign by the Yad Vashem Public Relations team; Hi-Tech: the I-Make Jam That's All campaign by Amiram Fleisher for Solgood Communications; Tourism: Tourism to Turkey by Tzimet Communications on behalf of the Turkish Tourist Office; and Health and Medicine: Ziso Communications, for a campaign on cosmetic surgery on behalf of The Israel Society of Plastic Surgeons. An honorable mention was given to the public relations department of Coca Cola Israel for its Star 2005 campaign to promote Coca Cola in the Arab sector. In addition, final year university students were encouraged to submit projects for adjudication. The winner was Ohed Ivri, a student of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University who prepared a project on political consultancy.

MAMA OFF, which specializes in chicken-based products has appointed Dea Gersh, 34, as its marketing manager. Gersh, who for the past four years was marketing manager for Olivia and for six years before that deputy manager for marketing and sales at Rapid Billboard Advertising, is a Bar Ilan University graduate with a BA in communications and political science. She is completing an MBA course.

LEUMI CEO Galia Maor was among the visitors to a competition and display of projects by young entrepreneurs and made no secret of the fact that she was highly impressed by their initiative. She reminded them that if their ventures turned out to be profitable and they were considering opening up business bank accounts, that they should take one particular bank into consideration.

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